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Are You (Still) Hip? In 1986, Autoweek dared to ask the impossible

An insider’s guide to the automotively avant garde

August 10, 2018

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Well, are you? What does a bunch of automotive nerds know about the finer points of the hip life? Present company included and emphasized, of course. But where your humble chronicler lacks in charm and charisma, refinement, taste, the meaning of the phrase avant-garde, etc, he more than makes up for it in opinions. Namely, what did a group of anonymous editors -- the cover story features no byline -- deem hip in the year Top Gun came out?

-Sunglasses, but not Porsche Design sunglasses. (“Send them to the crusher.”)

-Belgian racing driver Camille Jenatzy, “The Red Devil,” 1896-1913, the first man to break 60 mph in the greatest named race car in history, La Jamais Contente (“Never Satisfied”). He died not from a racing accident but during a hunting party when he jokingly pretended to be a wild animal and a friend shot him. No hipper way to die.

-The Swiss Army wristwatch, which is so hip, “We won’t show you a picture of one.”

-The Volvo 740 Turbo wagon. My friends own examples of the Volvo 740 Turbo wagon, and I am loath to inform them of their hipness because I will never hear the end of it. “A Volvo 740 Turbo wagon,” wrote Autoweek, “is more hip than most Porsches.” Great, I will never hear the end of it from my Porsche friends.

-“Bronzed stringback driving gloves over the mirror of a ’58 Buick Roadmaster; very, very hip.”

-The Peugeot 205 GTI

-The Citroen 2CV

-The Mercury Sable. It’s much cooler than an Audi, says 1980s Autoweek, presumably mired in the horrors of “unintended acceleration.” Rest assured that a 1986 Mercury Sable -- with its cool wraparound clear headlights -- will not accelerate at all, intended or otherwise.

-The German magazine Auto Motor und Sport. May I also suggest Gute Fahrt?

-Steve Blake, who bought the Avanti car company in 1982, taking $1.9 million in federal funding from the state of Indiana before declaring bankruptcy four years later

-“People who don’t write letters complaining about this article are hip. Very hip. We respect that kind of hipness. A lot. The next round of Talisker (hipness in extremis) is on us.” This, in fact, is perennial and should be printed out and framed with every issue of every magazine, ever.

-The Audi. What an era: when a Mercury Sable would have been cooler than an Audi, in 2018 the default uniform of cool tech guys who live in downtown Austin and take notes on craft beer. Reaganomics really devastated the American psyche.

Ironically, there was a time when this was considered cool. Raise you hand if you remember the long forgotten twin of the Ford Taurus.

So, does it hold up?

First: what Autoweek did not predict is the falling out of the word “hip.” Henceforth, “hip” will be replaced by “cool,” a very hip move indeed.

Everything comes around in 30-year cycles. Mid-80s Autoweek and its cadre of anonymous editors deserve credit for pinpointing, say, the coolness of the Peugeot 205 GTI (“the hippest car in the world”). We Americans can finally enjoy the hipness/coolness of a 205 GTI, being legal to import (at last!), but it won’t be cheap.

Thanks to Radwood, in-car phones are now cool, electronic dashboards are cool, period-correct Porsche Design sunglasses are devastatingly cool, taking the badges off your Mercedes-Benz 420SEL is cool, this issue is social-media-baitingly cool, and Vanilla Ice, real name Robert Matthew Van Winkle, now flips homes on the DIY Network and is therefore very cool.